Hey there. It’s Brady again.
Maybe reports of the death of NFTs have been greatly exaggerated?
Yet another marketplace for non-fungible tokens is online, this time developed by a company called Cybertino Lab. It’s a little different from most others that received media coverage before, in that it’s designed to carry 3D digital avatars that can be integrated into video games and other social applications, rather than digital artworks. The overarching idea is still about the ownership of digital assets, but Cybertino’s application is in the context of the metaverse, which means the items for sale aren’t merely static things that are just to be looked at.
More and more people are getting onboard with NFTs and use cases are diversifying, even though sales volume dived 90% in May. And even blue-chip artists like Cai Guo-Qiang (who makes art using fireworks) and Damien Hirst (who might be the UK’s richest living artist) are making small fortunes by moving onto the blockchain, bringing NFTs even further into mainstream contemporary art.
It’s evident that other forms of utility are finding their ways into this arena too, from digital clothing to a video game that went from making USD 670,000 in April to USD USD 79 million in the first 18 days in July.
NFTs get a lot of flack because, for a while, they were playthings of the crypto crowd. Trades were pumpy, speculative, and difficult to grok. Likely, many endeavors in utilizing NFTs will be a bust, but some will persist and become part of the tech behind fresh experiences. See you in the metaverse?
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